Updated: 11/09/2024
You might be wondering if $1 million is really enough to retire early. Maybe you’ve heard you should wait until you’re 65 or even later to quit working. But let us tell you something—we retired early with $1 million, and we’re living our best life. The real mistake? Most people wait too long to retire, sacrificing their health and happiness along the way.
In this post and accompanying video, we’ll share what our early retirement looks like, how much it costs, and why you might be saving too much or delaying your dreams for no good reason.
Our Home and Living Situation
We live just outside of Indianapolis, Indiana. It’s a great location for keeping our cost of living low while still enjoying the perks of being close to a city.
Our house is a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath, 1700 sq. ft. home—which is honestly more space than we need. It’s in a safe neighborhood, about 20 minutes from downtown Indy and 40 minutes from the airport.
The low cost of living in this area gives us room in our budget for the things we really enjoy, like travel and hobbies.
Enjoying Entertainment on a Budget
When it comes to entertainment, we’ve learned how to have fun without spending a fortune. We love going to concerts and sporting events, and you’d be surprised at how often we get free or heavily discounted tickets on Facebook Marketplace.
In the summer, our city hosts free concerts a couple of times a week, and neighboring towns do the same. So, we’re able to enjoy live music without spending a dime.
As for TV, we don’t watch much—there’s not a lot of quality content on these days. Instead, we spend time on YouTube watching travel and finance channels. When we do want to watch a movie, we’ll download it and watch on our 65” TV.
But truthfully, most of our time goes into our hobbies, which we’ll talk about next.
Our Retirement Hobbies and Fitness Routine
We’re pretty active, and we love getting outside. We have access to some great biking trails in our area, and we spend a lot of time riding through nature. When we want to change it up, there are several state parks within an hour’s drive that offer excellent hiking options.
We also go to the gym at least four times a week to stay in shape. It’s a key part of keeping ourselves feeling good in retirement.
In addition to outdoor activities, we enjoy a bit of local travel, like visiting family in nearby states.
Jason also has a side hustle in online marketing, but lately, we’ve been focusing most of our energy on our YouTube channel.
Daravy is passionate about cooking—especially Asian dishes—and she also loves gardening, where she grows her own herbs to use in meals.
Our Travel Lifestyle
We spend 5–6 months of the year traveling, mostly to escape the cold winters in Indiana. Our go-to destinations are in Asia, where we have family and friends.
Between the two of us, we’ve traveled to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Mexico. I, Jason, have also been to Taiwan and Hong Kong, while Daravy has visited Laos, China, Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, and Belgium.
We’re already planning our next big trip, which will kick off in December. This time, we have several new countries on the itinerary, including spending one month in Japan before returning to the US.
We’ll start documenting our travels on our other YouTube channel, 40 North Travels. If you’re interested in seeing more of our adventures, make sure to check it out!
Our Early Retirement Budget
Now, onto the big question—how much does this lifestyle actually cost?
When we’re in the U.S., our living expenses run about $1,300 to $1,400 per month. That’s around $17,000 per year for a modest, debt-free lifestyle in the Midwest. And when we travel, we typically spend about $1,500 per month, or around $18,000 per year. We stay in nice, 3-star hotels or modern Airbnbs, not hostels or luxury resorts.
In total, we spend about $20,000 to $24,000 per year, with 6 months in the U.S. and 6 months abroad. That means we’re only withdrawing 2% to 2.4% from our $1 million portfolio each year, so our nest egg actually continues to grow.
If you’re interested in seeing a detailed breakdown of our travel and living budgets, keep an eye out for future posts and videos—we’ll be sharing those soon.
Health is Wealth
Let’s talk about health for a moment. It’s easy to get caught up in focusing on money and forget that time is our most limited resource.
We see stories every day about rich and famous people getting sick or dying young. It doesn’t matter how much money you have—none of us are invincible. As we age, our health declines, and waiting too long to retire can mean we miss out on enjoying the best years of our lives.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is pushing off retirement, trying to save a little more at the expense of their health and happiness.
Our advice? Quit your job before it’s too late! Figure out your retirement numbers, and don’t wait until it’s too late. Life is short—live it on your terms.
Wrapping It Up
So, after hearing about our lifestyle and budget, what do you think? Did we make a mistake retiring early with $1 million? Let us know in the comments!
If you’re curious about how we managed to save up $1 million, check out our other post on that topic. We hope our story inspires you to rethink what’s possible in your own retirement planning.
Quit Your Job Before It’s Too Late! Retire Early Before This Happens To You
Do you have medical insurance? Most estimates I see are about $20-25k a year per couple just for that, which is about thr same you spend per year.
Hi Bill. Great question. Yes, we do. You might be surprised to hear that we currently pay $0 for our health insurance. We recently made a video about this. Feel free to check it out. https://youtu.be/NIgxu4FSUDA